This fantastic car and the photograph belong to Lawrence Clift of Lawrence Clift Photography. You can see more of his motorsport photos and view his wedding photography portfolio at www.lawrencecliftphotography.co.uk

Note: Please be cautious when listening to loud sounds, especially with headphones!

Recorded with a RØDE NT2 held in a pistol-grip and covered with a deadcat windgag.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Photo Credits

I’d like to thank the Lawrence Clift for allowing me to use his fantastic image in this post – and for allowing me to record the car!

The tearoom is decorated and set as if it were the 1940s. Era music and the crackling of a fire proved irresistible to record, sadly it didn’t last long as customers arrived for a cup of hot chocolate!

Recorded with the ZOOMH4’s internal stereo mic (handheld) with a handmade windgag

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Rate My Ride Car

Its a great place to share photos and images of cars that you have tuned and painted in your favourite racing games. Visit Rate My Ride today

Wildlife recording is one area i’d like to concentrate more on but it takes a huge amount of patience, in that sense it’s not too dissimilar to Railway audio recording: in that you hunt out a good spot, set up and wait… hoping for that moment when you “catch” the sound you want. And of course it also suffers from nay of the same problems of railway recording, unwanted environmental noises like cars, tractors, people and planes can ruin an otherwise perfect recording.

Pop over to the London Sound Survey and lose yourself in the sounds of the capital – you might be surprised at what you find!

We’d wandered down to the Loughborough shed from Loughborough central station and the engine was just having its fill of water for the trip. Sadly I had to edit out the filling because a) it takes way too long and b) there was a car in the background.

One to listen to with headphones… it makes a great “chugging” noise as it rolls off towards the station.

If you have not been for a meal on the Great Central Railway I recommend you do, its not cheap but well worth the experience. My only criticism would be is that they need to clean the carriage windows a little more throughly and that some of the table fittings are lacking in quality. The meal and ambience however is great!

Recorded with the ZOOMH4’s internal stereo mic (handheld) with a handmade windgag

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Although a lot of our railways are predominantly run by volunteers the marketing of our railways has gotten to the point where they are now undeniably in the entertainment industry, the people visiting these attractions are there for a “day out” in recent years I’ve seen a huge increase in the number of families, especially when it comes to “Thomas Days” Pete Waterman has made a very thought provoking blog post about this.

Take the Clifton Hotel in Scarborough for example owned by English Rose Hotels. I stayed there on Friday the 21st August. The exterior is quite impressive and has excellent views over Scarborough’s North Bay. The staff were incredibly friendly and polite, the food was ok… but the room I stayed in… was hideous. Dirty, damp, peeling wallpaper, mould patches… the lot!

There’s a plaque in the hotel informing you that Wilfred Owen the WW1 poet stayed in the Hotel… on entering our room I wondered whether it had been cleaned since he left! What’s was so mind boggling about the room was that tea and coffee making supplies had been carefully arranged on the side but the filthy windows remained uncleaned. Take a look at this photo, this isn’t a few days worth of dirt… its a long and steady build up of muck!

Filthy window at the Clifton Hotel Scarborough

We we’re staying as guest of my parents, who I must admit had a slightly cleaner room, so at the time I didn’t feel like complaining especially as we we’re only there for one night. But for £65 for a night had I been paying myself I’d have kicked up a real fuss! Generally the Hotel needs some TLC all around, a lot of the hallways had stained on the ceilings, bits of woodwork or panelling coming free etc. The decoration in the lounge was dated but I’m not the interior design police so I can put up with that.

The saddest thing about the hotel is that every single member of staff I met was very friendly and seemed to enjoy their jobs, even the younger staff members who so often tend to be a little grump in other hotels we’re polite and helpful.

To see the peeling wallpaper, mould and dirt look through the gallery below

Recorded with the ZOOMH4’s internal stereo mic (handheld) and a home made wind gag.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me

Photo Credits

I’d like to thank the following for allowing me to use their fantastic images in this post(Also in movie)

• Rob Phillips (OldMiwi) : http://www.flickr.com/photos/oldmiwl/

I love this engine… it makes a great noise. At the start of this recording you can almost hear it saying “I can do it, I can do it” as as if from a Thomas the Tank Engine story… it then struggles, hisses and pants up the incline from Quorn with a full train finally celebrating with an exhausted “whistle” somewhere past the Rushey Lane bridge.

As much as I love the GCR it’s a real pain to record from with more environmental noise than you’d think: Apart from all of the nearby roads East Midlands Airport have ruined also many a recording – My girlfriend think’s it’s hugely entertaining to watch me sitting quietly in a field making a recording to suddenly stop and start shouting obscenities at EasyJet.

This was recorded south of Quorn not far from the Rushey Lane bridge and about 400 metres from the lineside. That distance means the mics are set to a very high gain… so a windshield is essential even in the great weather we had that day. This has been edited to kill a lot of the mics own self noise (I really need to get better mics and have my eye on a pair of matched Rode NT1, although a studio mic they’re popular with field recording folk because they have very low self noise… I’m constantly watching Ebay for deals!!!)

Recorded with my ZoomH4 a SUPERLUX E523/D microphone and Homemade Microphone Windshield System.

You are free to copy, distribute and make derivative works under this licence*

*For commercial use-age please contact me